


Just trying to have a life again, you know?

by Silent_of_Spirit



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M, I was feeling emotional so HAVE SOME EMOTIONS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-20 02:18:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17613572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silent_of_Spirit/pseuds/Silent_of_Spirit
Summary: Kaidan gets drinks with that doctor on the Citadel.





	Just trying to have a life again, you know?

**Author's Note:**

> First time writing in forever, but I only recently played through the Mass Effect series and HOT DAYUM I got attached so here, have some writing. Hope you enjoy it!

Kaidan stared into the bottom of his glass as if he could find meaning there, the buzz of his friends’ conversation droning on around him. He was on leave until he shipped out to Horizon in about a month, and they had dragged him out to Afterlife - though against his wishes. He hated the noise, the crowds, the pulsing lights… the life.

 

Everyone around him seemed to be living to the fullest, but he still felt hollow - broken. Shepard - Alysia, he had to remind himself - is the only reason they can do so, and it feels so starkly apparent. She was in everyone around him and the reminder still  _ hurt _ , tearing at him until he wished he was either numb or dead. It had been almost two years. Two  _ years _ that stretched like an eternity.

 

“Alenko! You there, man?” one of his friends joked, elbowing him in the ribs. He shook himself from his thoughts and forced a smile and a small, embarrassed laugh.

 

“Yeah, sorry. Just uh… a lot on my mind I guess.”

 

Drew - the one who elbowed him - pinned him with a look that was far too astute for Kaidan’s taste. He merely downed what was left in his glass in response.

 

“So, how about tomorrow?” Drew asked as the rest of the group looked on in interest. Kaidan’s brow furrowed.

 

“What about tomorrow?”

 

“Getting drinks with my doctor friend,” he said with a wicked smirk.

 

“Hell, if he won’t, I will!” one of the others chimed in, “She’s a babe.”

 

Kaidan snorted, leaning back in his chair with crossed arms. “Go for it.”

 

Drew gave him that look again.

 

“It’s been two years, man. You’ve got to try again sometime.”

 

He felt the lance of pain strike through his heart again, painful enough to make him lose his breath for a moment. “Yeah,” he mumbled, “I know. I know, just,” he didn’t know how to put it into words - not in a way they would understand. “You know what? Fine. Sure. Tomorrow’s great.”

 

There was a round of cheers from the table, and Drew clapped him on the back while signaling to a passing waitress for another round of drinks. Kaidan ached as he looked around the table, all the faces of his friends full of light and happiness, and in that moment he envied them in a way he had never envied anyone.

 

\---

 

She was beautiful. She had long red hair that fell in soft waves around her face, and freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose like stars.

 

“Hi, I’m Kylie,” she introduced herself with an outstretched hand, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear in a nervous way.

 

He took her hand gently and shook it, somehow summoning a smile. “Kaidan,” he said simply, rising to pull out a chair for her. She blushed and took a seat with a pretty smile. When he sat back down, he almost froze upon meeting her eyes.

 

They were blue - almost the same exact shade as Shepard’s. But somehow, they were so different. Kylie’s eyes held nothing of the same spark that always lingered in Alysia’s - that thrill for danger, the edge of steel, and the gentle compassion that always seemed to be a direct contradiction of the other two… but not in Shepard. Somehow, with her it made sense. No, the doctor’s eyes were soft and kind, but passive - timid, almost. She had none of the fire.

 

They made conversation, stilted and awkward as it was at first, but they loosened up after a few drinks. She was actually quite interesting, and he found himself enjoying her company. She was sweet and thoughtful, and very obviously passionate about her work. She worked at Huerta Memorial in the ICU, and he knew without having to ask that she was a popular doctor. He actually smiled… laughed a bit… and for a few minutes he found he could forget about how empty he felt.

 

“So, soldier… your place or mine?” she asked after they had both downed a few more drinks. She was coy and flirtatious, wrapping a strand of hair around one slender finger as she gazed at him with wide, innocent eyes.

 

“I, uh…” he chuckled and cleared his throat, feeling a slight blush creep up his neck. He was a little drunk, but he would have been lying if he’d said he didn’t enjoy the attention. “Yours,” he said finally, hearing the way the smoke creeped into his voice. She smiled and stood, tossing her hair over her shoulder.

 

They almost didn’t make it into her apartment before they were all over each other, a clash of lips and bodies. His head was fuzzy, but she was soft and tasted good, her lips pliant and eager. His body expressed its interest as he pushed her back against the wall, a rumble of approval escaping his lips at the way she gasped. She tugged at his shirt until he raised his arms enough for her to tear it off, throwing it somewhere on the floor behind him, and he grabbed her thighs, encouraging her to wrap them around his hips. He dove back into her mouth, groaning softly at the way she grinded against him.

 

_ “Bunk here tonight,” she whispered, her voice so soft he was sure he’d imagined it. But it was there in her eyes too, that longing he knew was mirrored in his own. He could feel himself being drawn in, though she hadn’t even touched him. There was just something between them that neither of them could ignore, present from the moment they met and pushing them toward each other as though driven by some outside force. _

 

_ God, he loved her and he knew it… and he suspected he always had. How could he say no to her? To this? _

 

_ When he took her face in his hands and captured her lips, the universe fell away. Her lips, her touch, the softness of her skin - all of it was better than he could have ever imagined… and he had imagined it. He pushed his hands into her hair, pulling it from the tight bun she always insisted upon until the soft curls were freed, falling around them like a curtain. She made an appreciative noise, and oh how he wanted to hear it again. _

 

_ She broke from his lips with a gasp as he tightened his fingers and pulled, and he set his teeth to her neck with a groan, eager to lay his claim in her darkened caramel skin. Let the universe know that she was his, finally. The sound that escaped her lips was nearly his undoing, and he had to think of wiring difficult circuitry - every step of the process - to calm his mind back down. _

 

_ It didn’t work. How could it when she was there in his arms at last, moving against him in a dance that left him breathless? She was everything… _

 

Kaidan tore himself away with a gasp, trying to quell the guilt at the look of shock on the doctor’s face. He turned and raked a hand through his hair as he tried to compose his wayward emotions.

 

“I-I’m sorry,” he said, voice hoarse, “I can’t.”

 

“That’s okay,” she breathlessly replied. He heard her shuffling behind him, and then a soft exhalation as she seemed to settle on the couch. There was silence for several long moments, and he tried to reign himself in. “What’s her name?” she whispered, and the query made him open his eyes to glance at her. There wasn’t disappointment on her face, but a strange sort of understanding.

 

“Alysia,” he croaked. How long had it been since he spoke her name? Her service? Pain ripped through him all over again, white hot and agonizing. “She died,” he said by way of an explanation she didn’t ask for.

 

“I’m sorry.” There was no pity there, but sadness, and at her next words he understood. “Jean-Luc,” she replied, gaze suddenly watery. “He did too.”

 

Kaidan gave a small, humorless laugh. “Drew?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

 

“He means well,” she said with a slight smile, “but he doesn’t understand.”

 

“Yeah,” he agreed, bending to grab his shirt from where it had been discarded.

 

“Tell me about her?”

 

Kaidan let out a breath in a whoosh of air as he pulled his shirt over his head. “She was… she was everything.”

 

He sat beside Kylie on the couch and shared their story, his and Shepard’s. She laughed with him at the ridiculous moments, sighed at the sweet, and held his hand through the rough parts. She told him of Jean-Luc, and they shared their grief and understood in a way only those who have lost whom they loved ever could. They held each other at the end of it all, taking comfort in the understanding, and she startled him when she spoke.

 

“Despite it, I think we are some of the lucky ones,” she whispered.

 

“Why’s that?”

 

“Because we got to experience what few ever get to. And yeah, it hurts, but that’s how we know it was real.”

 

He swallowed around the sudden lump in his throat. “Yeah,” he murmured.

 

_ Yeah, it was. _


End file.
